


A Sleigh with Bells

by aurilly



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Christmas Presents, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 15:53:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20566946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/pseuds/aurilly
Summary: Edmund had thought that once back in England, he would never see anyone he knew from Narnia again. He was wrong.





	A Sleigh with Bells

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WingedFlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingedFlight/gifts).

Edmund climbed the many steps to his third-floor dormitory room and kicked his shoes off. They landed somewhere under the bed. 

"What's put you out, Pevensie?" asked Sanderson, who was reading a detective novel in the next bunk over. "More than usual, I mean."

"What do you mean, 'more than usual'?" Edmund asked, frowning as he changed into his cricket whites. 

"You're always a touch out of sorts. Like an old man with the gout. Putting a brave face on it, but never quite well. Even though, as far as I can tell, you've got nothing wrong with you."

"Just a case of being fourteen," Edmund grumbled.

"As are we all. What of it?"

"Nothing," Edmund replied, because he couldn't answer with the truth. He couldn't tell Sanderson that he'd been fourteen before, and in better circumstances. He could have borne the mortifying voice changes, the spots, the clumsy too-bigness of his nose and hands and feet, the constant, er, aberrations in his trousers. He'd weathered the physical aggravations the first time, which meant that now, he had tricks in his arsenal for how to make the best of it.

But what he couldn't stand were the strict confines of school life, the lack of independence associated with the age of fourteen in his life. Far from king of his own country, here he was little more than a servant, forced to fag for the falsest, most two-faced bully of a prefect in the entire school. Bring the older boy his tea and wash up after him. Forced to run in the drizzle in too-short shorts and catch balls. Games, the prevailing passion of English boarding school, trumping every other pursuit, including that of knowledge, left Edmund cold. A boy who had once fought actual wars, who had fought for his life, could hardly drum up the same level of do-or-die enthusiasm for spot. His fingers itched to hold a sword or a legislative quill, not a ball or a cricket bat or a teapot.

It was enough to tempt Edmund back into his old ways, the ways he'd practiced at his old school, before Narnia. Manipulation and deceit, for revenge and bullying and all sorts of wrong reasons. 

"Break a leg," Sanderson said before Edmund went out to play in the game.

"Hopefully not."

He _did_ break a leg, in the end, or something very near. For even though Edmund's heart was hardly in the game, his innate drive to succeed was not so easily turned off. He'd scored the final, vital points for the team, but at the price of an awkward move that left him laying sprawled out and unable to move. He didn't cry, didn't make a noise, so utterly stoic that at first the house masters failed to see the seriousness of the injury.

The only good thing about a week in the infirmary was that he was spared the drone of school life, and could read to his heart's content. 

He read and reread the letter from Eustace describing his latest adventure in Narnia, with some girl Edmund had never heard of. He was happy for Eustace, honestly he was. But his mood, already as permanently drizzly as the cricket pitch, had broken out into a true storm upon receiving it. Edmund was not allowed back, was being forced to move on in a life he currently hated; meanwhile, Eustace got to have more (albeit rather cold and tedious-sounding) adventures in _his_ country. 

Nothing was fair. 

He'd gotten a new torch since leaving one in Narnia. Two, actually. There were no masters to enforce lights out and bedtime in the infirmary, and no other patients at the time, so Edmund was able to turn it on and read naval history novels—tales of adventure and honour—after hours, without even hiding under the covers. He had just gotten engrossed when a persistent tap on the window nearby registered upon his consciousness. 

He looked up to see a most unexpected sight: a reindeer's horn tapping just outside. 

Edmund hadn't walked in days, but he managed to hobble, holding carefully onto various pieces of furniture, over to the window. Outside, taking up far too much room, and looking quite conspicuous, was a sleigh, to which were harnessed the four jolliest, most perfectly groomed reindeer in all the worlds. And seated in the sleigh…

"Hullo, Father Christmas," Edmund breathed. 

"Retain your nonchalance, your Majesty," Father Christmas whispered. "For while my arts conceal my chariot from view, anyone can see you."

"Talking out the window, to no one, like a madman," Edmund realized out loud. His heart began to feel lighter, for the first time since they left Reepicheep and Caspian on the shores of the end of the world. For here, finally, most unexpectedly, was something of the life from which he'd been permanently shut out.

"How are you here, he asked? Isn't it a bit early for Christmas?"

"For everyone else, perhaps, but not for you. You see, I visit almost all the worlds, but only yours and the one in which Narnia exists celebrate something specifically called 'Christmas'. For the others, I come during similar festivals under different names. Or I simply stop by individuals when a visit would do them the most good. I go by different names in all of them."

Something about his speech reminded Edmund of Aslan's parting words to him and Lucy. Something about finding him in England, too, and learning to love him there, though under a different name. 

"Are you like Aslan, then?" Edmund was not quite certain what it was he was asking. Whether he was asking if Father Christmas were a god, or if they were related, or if Father Christmas was Aslan himself. (However, upon instant reflection, Edmund ruled out the last one as making no sense.)

"Something like, but not quite the same. He visits and exists in multiple worlds, as I do, but there are some that he does not have anything to do with. However, while I come and go as I please, I have created no worlds, rule over none. I am a welcome guest everywhere, but a resident nowhere."

"Well, thank you for visiting me tonight. It isn't Christmas, but I think I needed a familiar Narnian face. Or a face that I knew from Narnia." 

"I know. And that is why I have come. I have kept this gift in waiting for a moment like this, all these years. To make up for the one you missed."

There was only one thing Father Christmas could mean. Edmund cringed, as he always did when he thought of that terrible time. 

Sensing his discomfort, Father Christmas reached out and touched his shoulder. "I bring it up not to torment you, son, but to reassure you that all is well. That you would have had a gift, even then. However, my magics, although considerable, were no match for the Witch, and I feared for the lives of my reindeer if I got between her and her 'prize'. The last time I had crossed her had been disastrous and resulted in my banishment. I knew it would come out all right in the end, and so… It is I who must apologize to you for being unable to rescue you, and allowing all of you to have to experience such horrors."

"Not at all," Edmund replied, somewhat automatically, because his head spun to think of Father Christmas apologizing to him, for anything, when it was Edmund who had sinned so deeply, against everyone. 

"What gift?" Edmund asked, for he had received many while in Narnia, during Father Christmas's various visits. Very nice gifts indeed, of things he needed in Narnia for his work—pens that never ran dry and notebooks that never ran out of sheets and suits of unbreakable armour and alien-looking shoes with soles that allowed the wearer to traipse from one end of the country to another without hurt feet.

Father Christmas rummaged in his bag. He pulled out a little embroidered bag with a string-pull tie, the kind that Mother often kept her earrings in, as well as a pair of gloves, a strange-looking compass, and a pair of handkerchiefs. He handed both to Edmund. 

Edmund peered inside the bag and saw two rings. He looked up at Father Christmas in confusion.

"Am I getting married?" he asked a little wryly, betraying spirits that had already been buoyed closer to his natural sarcastic good humour by the visit, and even more at the idea of forgiveness and a gift. 

"Except in the moment when you want to use them, you should only handle them while wearing gloves."

"I think I know what these are," Edmund said slowly, thinking of the wild tale the Professor and Aunt Polly had told them all after their first trip.

"You know the shape of it, though not the exactness. These are not the same as the rings used by your friends. Those remain buried in a yard in Cheapside. But Andrew Kirke was not the only man to understand what to do with a box of Atlantean dust. Far from it. His manufacture was clumsy, experimental, overly sensitive. This is an older, purer version of those rings. And the compass will keep you from getting lost in the Wood. Tie the cloth around your head to cover your nose, and the vapors of the place will have no impact on you."

A chance for more adventures. A chance to regain that which he had lost. 

This was, by far, the greatest gift anyone could ever give him, far surpassing anything his siblings had received while in Narnia. 

"Thank you," he said simply, hoping his tone conveyed the depths of his gratitude and awe.

"There is but one stipulation," Father Christmas continued. "I implore you not to use it immediately. To wait until you are eighteen and have finished school, here."

Edmund frowned. This was the only stipulation he would have dreaded. "But I'm miserable here." 

"Learn not to be miserable. You have a stronger spirit than that. I cannot break the commands of Aslan, for he, not I, is your liege lord. He commanded you to live here awhile, and therefore, live here you must. But the stipulation lasts only for a few years. After that, your life is your own, to live where to please and chase whatever adventures you choose. And note, there are two kerchiefs, for you and a companion."

Edmund thought of Lucy, equally lost though a better sport than he about school. They had always been one another's favorite companions, and would be a good adventuring partner. He thought of Susan, who seemed to be forgetting Narnia and her time there. A little adventure would certainly jog her memory. He thought of Peter, who didn't need the adventure as much as the rest of them, but who would not turn his nose up at the chance.

"Thank you," Edmund said simply. "I can think of some ideas for what we will do when the time comes."

Father Christmas tightened the reins and smiled. "You're very welcome. Now, buck up. And perhaps I shall run into again in some other world, years from now."

"I look forward to it."

"Merry Christmas."

"Yes, Merry Christmas," Edmund repeated as he watched the sleigh lift into the air and fly towards the moon.

He hid his gifts in the small satchel that held the things he'd brought for his few days in the infirmary, and then started an excited letter to Lucy. He would write Eustace later, too, no longer quite so jealous.


End file.
